Speculation is well underway about a potential presidential run for Sen. Bernie Sanders in 2020. Reading the tea leaves, “Politico’s” Gabriel Debenedetti looks at – among others - Sanders’ efforts to beef up his relationship with organized labor.

“From forging closer ties to the labor movement to shoring up his once-flimsy foreign policy credentials, the moves have provided the senator inroads into party power structures that largely shunned him in favor of Hillary Clinton last year,” Debenedetti writes, referencing Sanders’ work with American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten.

Earlier in 2017, Sanders stumped in Mississippi in favor of the United Auto Workers’ unsuccessful effort to organize workers at a Nissan plant in Canton.

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“And he has headlined events and conference calls back in Washington with progressive organizations like the Working Families Party.

"I see him taking more responsibility," said Weingarten, one of Hillary Clinton's most prominent labor supporters in 2016, who backed Sanders' pick to lead the DNC after that election. The pair have worked together on Puerto Rico recovery efforts and on a community college unionization drive in Vermont, and Weingarten backed Sanders' signature health care proposal this fall.

"That's why you saw so many 'mainstream Democrats' sign on to his Medicare-for-all bill," she said.”